What Torture Actually Looks Like

It is a commonplace for the Left to accuse the Bush administration of rationalizing, condoning and conducting torture. The most urgently and frequently pressed accusations are of waterboarding, an excruciating practice that simulates drowning (but produces no permanent injury). It is said (although never by the Left) to have resulted in a huge amount of actionable intelligence from the otherwise recalcitrant Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Some of that intelligence helped the Obama administration, which had relentlessly demagogued the torture issue in 2008, on the path toward killing Osama -- undoubtedly the single most popular act in the President's first term.

I'll accept arguendo the idea that waterboarding is torture. I shall also reserve for another time the question whether the use of torture can be justified in extreme circumstances, cf. Dershowitz, "The Case for Torture Warrants." For the moment, I want only to point out that the criticism of torture seems to be quite selective. The fact that torture, not to mention rape and murder, is being practiced this very day by the reigning Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt, seems to be invisible to those otherwise so sensitive to it. If anyone has heard of the ACLU, etc., yelping about it (as opposed to, say, creches) please let me know.

That torture by Islamic thugs seems to be invisible now to Usually Very Sensitive People does not mean, however, that it is actually invisible. It's been seen, alright. The grisly story is here. (Warning: It starts with a graphic picture).

Moral of story: When torture is practiced in the fight against mass-murdering terrorism, it's an outrage. When it's practiced by those ideologically in sync with terrorists, hey, it's time to look at the ceiling.